Today's Sports

GAINESVILLE -- For the second time this season, the Williston Lady Red Devils softball team and the P.K. Yonge Blue Wave have gone to extra innings to determine the winner of their two games. The results have been the same in both games as far as winner and loser as the Blue Wave have won both games by one run to take sole possession of first place in district play.

The Blue Wave came from behind in the eighth inning after a questionable call by the umpires to take a 10-9 win.

Williston Middle School’s baseball team breezed past Chiefland, 9-0, on Monday night. The team is now looking forward to defending its district championship from a year ago as it travels to Fort White tonight, Thursday, to play in the championship game at 6 p.m.

For five innings the girls softball game played Friday evening, between the Chiefland Indians and the Williston Red Devils, was all it had been built up to be. After all, both teams were locked up in a three-way tie for the district lead with PK Yonge.

The Red Devils had beaten Chiefland earlier in the season, PK Yonge beat the Red Devils, and the Indians beat the Blue Wave in the first round of district games.

PALATKA - There may be a lesson here - don’t make Williston’s baseball team wait around for a game that was supposed to start more than an hour earlier. It only serves to get the Red Devils fired up.

Williston paid a visit to St. Johns River Community College Saturday afternoon to play Putnam County school Crescent City, but the earlier junior college game, while a thriller that was ended in the bottom of the ninth with an SJRCC grand slam, made the two high school teams sit around.

The Levy County Raiders traveled to Belleview to face off against Scala Horsemen, ranked 20th in the nation. The last time the teams met, it was a slugfest that ended in the Raiders winning 18-0. This game turned out a lot closer than expected, with the Raiders winning 21-14.

Belleview held the number one-ranked Raiders (ranking from www.minorleaguefootballnews.com) to one first-half touchdown, scored by the defense. Pat Weeks scooped up an Ocala fumble and took it the distance, and the two-point conversion was good.

The Williston boys basketball team broke into new territory this past season, reaching the final eight in the Class 3A playoffs for the first time.

Never mind that the Devils lost to Orlando Jones, on the road, in the regional final that could have sent them to the four-team state tournament in Lakeland. The progress made in the basketball program under coach David Vespignani over the past two years is almost mind-boggling.

The Florida High School Athletic Association is proposing some big changes in high school athletics for the next school year, cutting back on the number of regular season games allowed for each team in all sports except varsity football, and changing districts for sports other than football, whose new districts have previously been announced.

Coming off two games this past week, the Williston Red Devils were trying to give the Chiefland Indians a win. After dropping a one run 6-5 game to Trinity Catholic on Tuesday Feb. 24, the Red Devils opened their district season on Thursday Feb. 26. Caleb Mederas spread 7 strike outs over five innings as the Red Devils stopped the Newberry Panthers 11-1 in a five inning stoppage.